since that letter has won the election and now we're looking at the possibility of a mini deal that would get enacted before january 1st but so far all we've heard are the sounds of silence in the negotiations. a senior white house official told me today when i asked was there any holiday season progress, back channel progress over the past couple of days, got a one-word reply, no. second, the democratic senate leadership says there's a 50/50 chance that we'd get a deal between now and january 1st, but they don't have any progress signs to point to in a tangible way. that's sort of a gut feeling that that will happen, and senate republican leadership aides said we haven't heard anything from the white house or senate democrats, so right now it's looking stalemated. there still is time for people to come back and pass a temporary kick the can kind of solution that would at least get us past january 1st for a month, two months, three months, but we've got to wait and see over the next couple of days. president obama comes back tomorrow and the senate comes back late tomorrow, and then